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In a showdown that rivals Predator vs. Alien, the hacker group Anonymous has set its sights on bringing down the hate group Westboro Baptist Church.

Westboro, whose members are more at home conducting despicable protests at the funeral processions of U.S. military servicemen, announced that they were going to have similar protests at the funerals of the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. In a strike to wound Westboro, the activist group Anonymous hacked the names, phone numbers, and social security numbers of numerous people it said are members of Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Topeka, Kansas. The data dump also included the names of multiple members' children and grandchildren. According to Information Week, the Anonymous attack was documented in a YouTube video (available here), which informed Westboro of the hit coming its way. "Your downfall is underway. Since your one-dimensional thought protocol will conform not to any modern logic, we will not debate, argue, or attempt to reason with you." Instead, Anonymous promised to wage a sustained assault that would "progressively dismantle your institution."

Anonymous also claimed to have changed Westboro spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper's PC desktop wallpaper to gay porn, and filed a death certificate in her name, which would prevent her from using her social security number. Anonymous don't play!

Meanwhile, on Monday Phelps-Roper's Twitter account was taken over by someone who claimed to be the hacker Cosmo The God, and who posted several tweets to the account about the takeover. Wired reported that Cosmo is a 15-year-old hacker who was arrested in June by the FBI, and who remains on probation until his 21st birthday, before which time he's not supposed to use a computer without supervision. If it is THE COSMO, I'm saying we cut the kid a break.

I know that the FBI has had its problems with Anonymous but our country has struggled to find ways to curb the Freedom of Speech that Westboro has, in my opinion, abused. It looks to me like Anonymous has found a way to stay off the FBI's watch list and at the same time harass a group that deserves a bit of harassment. My hope is that the FBI looks the other way on this one.

In other news, the KKK has announced that it will counter the protests of Westboro at military funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. I'm thinking Predator vs. Alien writers will never run out of material.